The Coaches Room is a regular feature throughout the 2023-24 season by former NHL coaches and assistants who turn their critical gaze to the game and explain it through the lens of a teacher. In this edition, Davis Payne, former coach of the St. Louis Blues and assistant with the Los Angeles Kings, Buffalo Sabres and Ottawa Senators, writes about how teams that have been eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention utilize the final games of the regular season to set themselves up to improve the following season.
The final week of the regular season can have different purposes for different kinds of teams. For teams that have clinched a berth in the Stanley Cup Playoffs or are still fighting to get in, their focus does not change. They're forging ahead business as usual.
For the teams eliminated from playoff contention, it's a real important time of either growth, development or preparation for the following season. As a coaching staff, you're going to start putting players into situations and minutes that they might not normally get just to see how they fare against top-level competition.
Are you a middle-six forward? Can we put you in a scoring role in the top six that puts you against the other team's top-four defensemen? And how do you fare?
You're probably going to play against teams that have clinched and trying to prepare their game for the postseason or teams fighting to get in. So, the competition is fierce and it's a real good proving ground to see how a young player can survive in that, thrive in that or how they deal with the stumbles.
You want to know the reaction that your player is going to have as sort of a blueprint that you can use working toward next year.
From a team standpoint, you want to see competitive pride. You want to see acceptance of playing a solid team game with good fundamentals, good details, good habits. You want to see guys really understand that every time you put on the jersey that's the most important game your team is playing.
Being eliminated from playoff contention can be like a breakup. There are a couple days where the harsh reality is that you're not making it, you're not getting in. You put in a full season, and a full summer of training and thought process of preparation into it, and there's a disappointment that should register deep in your guts.
At the same time, that should fuel you toward next season. After 1-2 games, 2-3 days, whatever it is, you've got to get over the mourning process because the League is going to come at you and your competitive instincts should come back out of you. So, that needs to show up real fast regardless of how tight of a race you were in, how early you are out or how late you were eliminated.
There are several different growth phases each team is going through. I've been on teams when getting into the playoffs and winning the Stanley Cup was the only growth we were concerned about. Then, you have the teams that have pulled back, started over from scratch and built it from the ground up with draft picks and young players.
Those teams that are in the long-term phase of, 'Yeah, it's Game 78, but this is just as important in a two-, three- or four-to-six-year plan. It's tough for players, coaches and fans to go through, but those games are really important building blocks in terms of how you're going to continue to grow as an organization.
As a coaching staff, you can't accept anything less than full effort, full competitive play. That detail needs to be driven home from Game 1 to Game 82. There's no letup in that. It's not just, "Get these games off the schedule." They're important games.
You may have a young player who had a very successful season in the American Hockey League or he's a college player who graduated or a junior player who turned pro. These are opportunities for them to see how their skills translate to a stronger, bigger and faster level of competition.
A lot of times it's a real eye-opener to a young player to see that some of the things he's used to being able to accomplish don't necessarily work at the NHL level. That sort of trial and error becomes a part of the growth process for the player as well as the coach to help the player understand that's the curve you're going to have to be on and what you're going to have to adjust to.
It's an early step in the process that, if you can go through it at the end of the season, perhaps you can make ground up in the offseason. Then, your first 15 games of the following season, which are just as important as the last 15 games, and have a smoother curve to them as opposed to peaks and valleys.
Veteran players are also an important part of this process. As a coaching staff, you're working through them to try to help the young player, but you're also with the veteran player, trying to understand "Where exactly is his role as we continue to grow as a team?"
Perhaps that veteran can still be a real effective player in your top-six forwards, top-four defensemen, or as a starting goalie. You also need to ask yourself, in a young league, "How are you going to fit into the transformation of your organization?" Are you a player on a nonplayoff team playing 18 minutes per game and can you be a real good one on our team playing 12-14 minutes helping a young player move forward? There is a whole different scope that a coaching and management staff and scouts look at in terms of what their roster is going to look like next September and October.
As part of the coaching staff, as the season winds down, you need to be in clear communication with management and the player as to exactly what you need from him going forward. That can be off the ice, which incorporates your strength and conditioning staff. It could be the medical group, which incorporates any nagging injuries and things that need to get looked at. If they need to get taken care of, the time is now.
Then, from an on-ice coaching perspective, you need to leave the player with a clear focus as to which skill sets, which plays, he needs to work on. Is it a centerman handling pucks on your backhand or taking face-offs? It is certain areas for a wing to improve? Or for a defenseman, does he need to work on pivoting one way versus the other or puck retrievals?
Whatever it may be, it's a real important timeframe so that when the player walks out that door at the end of the season, he has a clear plan for coming back the following season a much-improved player under the expectations that everybody has laid out on the table and been extremely clear about so you can improve.
